Description
Book SynopsisFollowing a spectacular surge in interest for Egyptian masters,
Modern Art in Egypt fills the void in Egyptian art history, chronicling the lives and legacies of six pioneering artists working under the British occupation. Using Western-style academic art as a starting point, these artists championed cultural progress, re-appropriating Egyptian visual culture from European orientalists to found a neo-Pharaonic School of Realism.
Modern Art in Egypt charts the years from Muhammad Ali’s educational reforms to the mass influx of foreigners during the nineteenth-century. With a focus on the
al-Nahda thought movement
, this book provides an overview of the key policy-makers, reformists and feminists who founded the first School of Fine Arts in Egypt, as well as cultural salons, museums and arts collectives. By combining political and aesthetic histories, Fatenn Mostafa breaks the prevailing understanding that has preferred to see non-Western art as derivatives of Western art movements.
Modern Art in Egypt re-establishes Egypt’s presence within the global Modernist canon.
Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION
PART ONE REACHING FOR MODERNITY: A MULTICULTURAL RENAISSANCE CHAPTER 1:
al-
Nahda: The Building Blocks of a By-Product 1.1. Producing Knowledge 1.2. Cosmopolitanism and Mass Media CHAPTER 2: EGYPT AS EXHIBITION 2.1. European Orientalism: The Art of the
Other and the Foreign Complex 2.2. Orientalizing a New Industry: Villa Medici, Cercle Artistique and Exposition du Caire CHAPTER 3: ART AND ISLAM
PART TWO FUNUN JAMILA: PATRONS, A STATE AND A NEW SOCIAL PLAYER CHAPTER 4: The Patrons 4.1. The Egyptian School of Fine Arts in Cairo 4.2. Société des amis de l’art, Salon du Caire and Atelier of Alexandria 4.3. La Chimère and the Art Advocacy Group 4.4. Cultural Salons and the Woman Question CHAPTER 5: The State 5.1. Building an Infrastructure 5.2. The Museum of Modern Art 5.3. Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil and his eponymous museum 5.4. Conclusion CHAPTER 6: The Artist–The Emergence of a new social player 6.1. Egypt for Egyptians 6.2. Innovators vs. Conformists
PART THREE AL-RUWWAD: THE FIRST-GENERATION INNOVATORS 7. Georges Sabbagh (1887-1951): The (E)migrant Son 8. Mohamed Naghi (1888-1956): Naghi d’Alexandrie 9. Mahmoud Mokhtar (1891-1934): The Hyphen between Ancient and Modern 10. Ragheb Ayad (1892-1982): The Godfather of the Egyptian Gaze 11. Mahmoud Saïd (1897-1964): In Search of a Happy Island 12. Marguerite Nakhla (1908-1977): Life as it should be
CONCLUSION Decoding 1930s Egypt: The Seeds of the Naksa TIMELINE ENDNOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
